Youthrive Victoria planting Dream Seeds in country schools and towns

A rural and regional schools program is inspiring students to make the most of their future careers and lives.

ASPIRATION. Resilience. Connection.

Those are the three pillars of a program run in country Victorian schools, known as Dream Seeds.

Since it was piloted in 2016, the program has visited 47 schools for more than 1100 Year 5 and 6 students.

It was developed and is now run by the alumni of Youthrive Victoria, an organisation that aims to develop young rural leaders, and strengthen rural communities in the process.

And that trait, according to Youthrive chief executive Maryann Brown, is what makes Dream Seeds special and effective.

“We have our young people as facilitators. They have designed the program and worked out a series of activities,” she says.

“The biggest feature is it’s young people talking to young people. It’s not teachers and parents.

“They talk about values, what they care about, community connections, so they (the kids) start thinking about that.“

It has been just more than 11 years since Youthrive Victoria was launched thanks to an establishment grant from the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust (initially, Youthrive was known as the Macpherson Smith Rural Foundation, before being recently rebranded).

Youthrive Victoria’s aim is to “strengthen rural communities by supporting young people to be leaders”. Through its various programs, scholarships and networks it hopes to develop their personal, professional and leadership capacities.

Youthrive Victoria’s leadership coaching team for 2020.

More than 400 country kids have taken part in Youthrive’s leadership camps since 2012, and its alumni network has grown to more than 450 people.

One of the participants at the leadership camp in January 2015 was Jayne Fendyk, who grew up in Ocean Grove and now works in Canberra.

For her, the leadership camp was a great opportunity to meet “like-minded”, “incredibly motivated young people” who were also “keen to build a better life for regional and rural Victoria at some stage”.

She is now one of the co-ordinators of the Dream Seeds program.

“We do know that there is an identified need, particularly in regional and rural areas, that (young country kids) have lower levels of aspiration and they need the tools to seek out new opportunities and build the skills they need to thrive,” she says.

Jayne Fendyk at the 2018 Regional Achievement & Community Awards, where Dream Seed won an award. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

“What we do is by having young rural people who are role models, they (the younger kids) can see new possibilities and things they can be doing.

“All our presenters are people who have gone on to study, or working, or TAFE, and so, for them, they can see new possibilities.”

Getting children thinking about what they want to do with their lives, and how they can contribute to their communities, is just one part of a bigger jigsaw puzzle for Youthrive.

This year it has donated six university scholarships (making it a total of 40 scholarships awarded since 2011), and also 22 Rural Chances Vocational Scholarships (there have been 56 scholarships of $5000 or $2000 awarded since 2017).

Last year, thanks to funding from The Ross Trust, it was also able to run mental health first-aid courses for the first time.

“It’s giving them insights into the range of mental health issues so they know what they're looking for, but also gives them ways of talking to their friends,” Maryann says.

“It’s a really powerful way of building capacity and knowledge in rural people to use in their communities.”

And there are new initiatives being developed. Branch Out, which provides mentoring for VCE students, is being piloted in Warrnambool this year.

Through all of these measures, Maryann says the hope is to develop “strong, resilient young people who are really skilled and able to contribute to their communities and be leaders in their community”.

“Ultimately, I just want all young people to grow up well and have good lives,” she says.

“We are providing as many opportunities as we can to help them develop.

“We are not going to change the world, but we can certainly make some people’s lives better.”